Emerald Spire 14.0 - Splinter Evacuation
The group waited in the landing of the third floor. Eventually, the leader of the Splinters, Tarrin, entered and immediately began questioning them about her apparently hitherto-lacking knowledge of the spire's transport function. Kormon and Marin revealed that the Adamantines apparently had a presence in the spire dungeon, but Tarrin argued that they must not know about their hideout on the third floor, or they surely would have been raided. Taking their advice seriously, she gave the order to her gang to clear out: the spire was obviously compromised, and they would have to move their base of operations. Tarrin thanked them for the tip, and offered them a favour in kind. A cleric that she had on staff healed the injuries they had sustained from the robots upstairs, and the four prepared to delve deeper, using the spire to teleport to the sixth floor. Amara and Kormon found themselves in the throne room, without the other two. The guard robots moved to attack them, but without the rest of their team, they had no interest in fighting, so they immediately retreated back to the third floor. Surmising that Ismail and Marin had ended up in an adjacent room, they decided to repeatedly teleport back and forth until they ended up in the same place; this took several attempts. Meanwhile, Marin and Ismail had indeed found themselves inside another room: an unfinished, empty place that was half excavated. The spire, unlike in any other spot they had seen it, was not perfectly cut: large chunks had been removed from spots, and glowing crystalline growths jutted out of others, spreading to the nearby wall. A strange humanoid creature with dead eyes sat chipping at the crystal with a pickaxe, its head apparently made out of the same green gem; beside it was a sack that writhed about, something living obviously inside. Marin attempted to talk with it, but its slow, blunt manner proved frustrating; when asked what was in the bag beside it, it merely replied that it was it's pet. Marin decided to open the bag, and in doing so unleashed an angry cockatrice that they were forced to subdue. The humanoid was unconcerned, and continued picking the whole while. When the cockatrice was rendered unconscious, Marin turned his attentions back to the strange miner. Displeased by the beings' frustrating manner, he opted to try and remove it physically from the room; it had admitted that it was being forced to mine here, and Marin assumed that the compulsion obviously binding it would wear off. Ismail commented that this was unlikely to be helpful: this seemed to be a summon, and no amount of time would free it from its contract. Armed with the knowledge that physical trauma would force a desummons, Marin proceeded to attack the creature. It was at this time that Amara and Kormon appeared, confused as to what was transpiring here. The miner tried to escape by teleporting on the spire, but it was prevented from triggering the key and was forcibly desummoned, its final threat regarding the 'great master in the deep' echoing in the air. Kormon claimed the crystal pickaxe and much to his elation found that it could be used to chip into the magical gem's surface. Category:Emerald Spire